First Fully Automated Land Rig Drills First Well
One of the biggest problems shale has is that during the bust months (few years) they shed a lot of good and well-trained labor. They need to cut costs to make ends meet. You cannot put people in storage to wait for the next upturn. They have to make ends meet themselves. What an automated rig does is making shale drillers way more reactive. They can switch on and off way more easily as much fewer new people will have to be hired and trained when the pendulum swings back. This is big.
